The Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice has formally charged Gifty Oware-Mensah, former Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Authority (NSA), in connection with a major corruption scandal involving an estimated GH¢653 million.
Court documents filed at the High Court in Accra allege that Oware-Mensah masterminded multiple schemes to siphon public funds through fictitious service personnel and fraudulent bank loan arrangements.
She faces five charges, including stealing, willful financial loss to the state, abuse of public office for personal profit, and money laundering.
According to the prosecution, Oware-Mensah, who was responsible for the NSA’s Finance and Procurement departments, exploited the NSA’s “marketplace” platform, a system intended to facilitate hire-purchase services for service personnel.
Details in the case reveal that she took control of a private company, Blocks of Life Consult, to create a list of 9,934 non-existent names drawn from the NSA’s system.
She then approached the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), falsely claiming her company had supplied goods to these fictitious individuals, using their allowance entitlements as security for a loan.
This deception led to a loan agreement between the ADB and the NSA, resulting in GH¢31.5 million being disbursed into the company’s account.
Oware-Mensah allegedly transferred more than GH¢22.9 million from this amount to another company in which she held a directorship.
The charges against her include:
• Stealing GH¢31,502,091.40 belonging to the NSA
• Willfully causing financial loss to the state via the fake hire-purchase scheme
• Using public office for personal financial gain
• Money laundering by transferring funds into personal and affiliated accounts
The loan was purportedly secured on the basis that repayments would be deducted from the allowances of the 9,934 National Service Personnel, all of whom were subsequently discovered to be fabricated.
Investigations traced some of the misappropriated funds to Amaecom Global Company, another firm where Oware-Mensah served as a director, as well as other entities linked to her.
The case remains before the court as the state pursues justice for the alleged abuse of public trust.
Source: www.Kumasimail/Kwadwo Owusu
